Canned Dragons

Mio works at a record store in Gothenburg, Sweden (also home to one of the finest contemporary psych rock bands, Hollow Ship). Mio has been posting artistic photos of albums for a few years, most recently focusing on body art to complement the album covers. Perusing through her astonishingly well executed posts could easily eat up a good chunk of your day.

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Her last post before the accident was this striking recreation of the artwork from Sufjan Stevens’ classic album Come On Feel The Illinoise.

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Although the brain injury she sustained effected her cognition and abilities, Mio is happy with what the experience has taught her. Chief among those lessons is the fact that we are not in control of our lives. The feeling of control is exposed as illusory in the face of disease, accidents, tragedies and other circumstances which we could neither predict nor prevent. In Mio’s case, the positive thing about her accident and subsequent recovery was her newfound ability to let go.

I faced this loss of control most acutely in my freshman year of college. I was in my second semester when a blow to the chest from a mere paperback book caused the subsequent appearance of a tumor. Fast forward a few weeks and I was in the hospital being treated for lymphoma. When you are eighteen years old, you feel invincible, like nothing is going to dramatically alter your life trajectory. You never even consider things like cancer or another potentially terminal illness. The faith of my youth, which had been dormant in the last few years of high school, became reinvigorated when I realized that I was not in control of my life (that’s a story for another time). I was blessed by, and at the mercy of, God’s providence.

Though I was sick, I could still do things and appreciate what possibilities each day would bring. That summer with no hair, fighting cancer with drugs that would put me out for a whole day at a time, was one of the best I’ve had in my four and a half decades. Life was down to its very elements. Very few thoughts of the future detracted from my enjoyment of the present. I didn’t sweat the small stuff. From then on, one of my biggest challenges as the years passed by, would be to do what I could to hold on to that way of framing things.

Earlier this year, on Star Wars day, I looked forward to seeing The Rise of Skywalker again and I indicated that I was giving up on Star Wars think pieces for a while. That lasted a few months, and then I came across this post from Hannah Long on Arc Digital.

I love to see the variety of posts on Arc Digi, but this one reminds me of something that would have come from another of my favorite publications, Christ and Pop Culture. In it, Long examines the centrality of faith in the Star Wars universe and how, of all the new properties, The Clone Wars series handles that aspect best.

Because here’s the thing people don’t get about Star Wars: it’s not about the space battles and laser swords. Nor is it about politics — in fact, the more political it is, the more boring it grows. Star Wars is about faith. (No wonder people get so mad about it online.) That explains the way we treat it and the way it’s written. It’s only by recognizing and embracing the religious nature of the story — and of its almost religious status in pop culture — that storytellers can capture the elusive “real” Star Wars.”

I have only seen parts of The Clone Wars series from George Lucas apprentice Dave Filoni.¹ One day, my oldest son told us that the series started off a bit slow, but that it ended up being highly critically acclaimed. My youngest son took this to heart, and binged his way through the seven seasons of the show. This is how I became exposed and though indeed in the beginning it felt a bit formulaic and stilted, it gradually began to tell some fascinating stories. The Siege of Mandalore 4-episode arc is singled out in Long’s article for special praise.

In the piece, Long writes about what sets the TV series apart from the recent Star Wars sequel movies. She looks at the difference in how the recent films have handled fidelity to the original stories.

The difference is in The Clone Wars’ religious philosophy. Unsurprisingly, Filoni approaches Star Wars with a religious sensibility similar to Lucas’s. Neither are worshipful and careful of the old canon like J. J. Abrams — both Lucas and Filoni take creative chances. But unlike Rian Johnson, neither are they instinctual iconoclasts.

Long goes on to speculate about the religious beliefs that seem to drive Filoni’s stories.

Unsurprisingly, Filoni draws inspiration from Tolkien’s books, which fueled his imagination as a kid. He’s compared Luke to Frodo and Ahsoka to Gandalf. He’s always posting Tolkien stuff. I don’t know anything about Filoni’s own religion, but I’m willing to bet his moral vision of the world is profoundly influenced by Tolkien’s, which was itself Catholic. Perhaps it’s a shaky connection to find, but those similarities lead me to predict that Filoni’s moral vision will prove more robust than that of competing stars in the Disney Star Wars constellation.

Having not seen the entirety of The Clone Wars, and not having followed Dave Filoni closely, I can only comment so much on the conclusions that are drawn by Long in the piece. However, her analysis of the Star Wars movies I have seen is spot on, so I’m inclined to give her thoughts credibility. I will be watching for more Star Wars projects from Dave Filoni with great interest.²

Dave Filoni also had a hand in the Mandalorian. ↩︎

That of course, includes the second season of the Mandalorian. ↩︎

Matt Taibbi has a thought-provoking edition of his newsletter where he ponders whether journalism is destroying itself with its changing mission of asking hard questions to one of trying not to offend. He makes some good points, although some of his examples of cancel culture might not be entirely accurate.

What struck me, though, was a particular paragraph listing situations where people were trying hard to show their respect for the African American community.

Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?

Each year, during the worship service that starts the season of Lent, Forgiveness Sunday, Orthodox Christians go one by one requesting forgiveness of one another, usually hugging as they do so. This doesn’t sound a whole lot different that the situation Taibbi describes in Houston. I live 5 minutes from Cary, NC, and I didn’t hear about the officers washing the feet of pastors. However, I met some of those officers when they did a session on race relations a couple of years ago at the Cary church I attend. They were serious about improving race relations, before the death of George Floyd, working with the community they serve to make sure that was a priority. One might say it is a particular mission of the Cary PD. In this instance, though, the report of the officers washing the feet of the pastors was not even true. The officers were there to support white pastors washing the feet of black pastors in a show of solidarity and request for forgiveness.

I’m not sure if Taibbi is aware, but feet washing has been a part of Christian practice, since Christ did it for his disciples (John 13:1-17), before what is commonly known as The Last Supper. It is emblematic of the faith of one who came, not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). No less than the king of France (in the age where kings held absolute power), Louis IX, used to wash the feet of his subjects, so zealous was he to show his Christian faith.

Louis was renowned for his charity. Beggars were fed from his table, he ate their leavings, washed their feet, ministered to the wants of the lepers, and daily fed over one hundred poor.

The Pope washes the feet of prisoners and refugees. When he does so, he is just contributing to a long Christian/Catholic tradition of humility and service.

Fred Rogers made a similar gesture with Francois Clemmons, playing the role of an African American police officer, as they placed both of their feet in a small pool to make a point in a time when many swimming pools were not integrated. His point in doing so was to focus on racial reconciliation, much in the same way the Cary police officers have done for the last few years.

But here in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, only five years later, a quiet Presbyterian minister and an African-American police officer show the world how to integrate swimming pools. Rogers invites; Clemmons accepts. As Clemmons slips his feet into the pool, the camera holds the shot for several seconds, as if to make the point clear: a pair of brown feet and a pair of white feet can share a swimming pool.

In referring to Christian practices as cultish, Taibbi comes off as sounding a bit like one of the ancient Romans, many of whom didn’t understand the religion. I expect we will see more of this type of thing as we move into a post-Christian period. Foot washing has been practiced in many different contexts, to show love and service for one another in the manner of Christ. While some of Taibbi’s points land with chilling implications, his ignorance about certain traditions and his readiness to jump on unsubstantiated Twitter rumors somewhat damage the credibility of his claims.

A few months ago, Consequence of Sound reported on Disney passing on the chance to buy Twitter because, in the words of Disney chief Bob Iger, “the nastiness is extraordinary.”

Once upon a time, way back in 2017, there was a little website called Twitter that caught the eyes of the monolith Disney. The idea at the time was for Disney to acquire Twitter to help modernize its distribution, The New York Times reports. When Iger saw the downsides of Twitter firsthand, though, he realized the deal couldn’t possibly be worth it. He began feeling intense dread and knew he had to reject the deal.

Whether the overall nastiness started with Gamergate or the Trump presidential campaign, by 2017, it had hit critical mass. Around the same time as the revelation about the Disney purchase, Tim Challies wrote about “becoming a Kwitter.”

At the top of the list is the simple reality that I may have the wrong disposition for Twitter. The man just doesn’t fit the medium. Over the past few years I’ve awakened to the reality that in many ways I am a weak person. I am weak physically, constitutionally, and in some ways emotionally. Especially, I’ve learned that I am easily fatigued, drained, or discouraged when involved in unnecessary conflict or even when witnessing it. If my unsanctified disposition is toward cowardice and running away, I believe my sanctified disposition is toward peace and peacemaking. Yet Twitter is a medium that seems to generate conflict and to thrive upon it. I find it a discouraging and intimidating place to be. I derive negligible pleasure from it. It adds nothing necessary to my life and very little that’s truly beneficial.

I can relate to the admission of being weak in some ways and though I’m not usually conflict averse IRL, I see online conflict as mostly unproductive. Rarely do hostile exchanges result in changed minds or reconciliation. On a platform like Twitter, it can also feel like conflict can be unexpected and especially intrusive.

I was caught off guard by this aspect of the platform one Sunday a couple of years ago when I quoted something that I had read in a popular newsletter and liked and with which I identified. I tweeted the quote with attribution. I did find the quote on a Twitter but I couldn’t use the retweet or quote features because the original tweet had some additional comments that didn’t really add context. So I used the good old copy and paste and throw some quotes around the copied text method. I then added “(x Twitter handle) has said:.” Pretty simple, right?

After the tweet, I quickly started receiving multiple replies from the original author of the quote. She said that the statement was made in a private conversation with friends of which I was not a part. She said the way I worded the quote was “creepy,” even though I had just copied and pasted what she wrote in a public tweet. I apologized for using the quote and let her know it had resonated with me. She cooled down a bit but still remained fairly defensive, sending me more tweets before letting it settle. I had to teach a confirmation class at church that morning and the whole exchange really rattled me. In fact, it really weighed on me that whole week.

To give the original author of the tweet the benefit of the doubt would be to guess that she had been the victim of some sort of trolling on Twitter previously. To immediately assume that this is not only a very real possibility, but in all likelihood, a probability, is to be ready to accept the malignancy that pervades the social media platform. The ubiquitousness of the clap backs and the quote slams would cause almost anyone to put their shields up. Even the normally mild-mannered seem to turn into battle-hardened pugilists armed with 280 characters on Twitter.

Of course, in one sense, the popular social media platform is simply emblematic of the problems posed in the broader internet. Twitter can just be a condensed microcosm of the troubling trends that pervade human interactions online.

Jonas Ellison, muses about the internet more generally, in his newsletter.

I see the internet as a giant omnipresent digital mirror. Since its inception, it’s been showing us a lot (!) about humanity. Like those magnified mirrors equipped with bright halogen lights that reveal all the blemishes, knicks, moles, freckles, scars, and discolorment in our faces - we’re seeing more than we were meant to ever see in normal daylight.

Those unflattering lights seem particularly strong in Twitter’s corner of the Internet.

After the incident I described, I changed my account settings to use protected tweets. “Protected” is a great word to use in this context, because I wasn’t really feeling like tweeting was safe. I didn’t need the friction caused by even positive comments and I surely didn’t need strangers tweeting at me that the Rape of Nanjing was a hoax (yep, that actually happened).

I’ve been using the protected tweets feature for about 2 years now. I miss some of the aspects of having public tweets, though. It’s pretty limiting when you can’t tweet a reply to someone who doesn’t follow you, or ask a quick question of a company. Surprising positive engagements can happen along with the negative ones in a public space. I once tweeted a comment on the new Public Enemy album (with no @’s or hashtags) and the producer responded back to me. I do miss those kinds of interactions. Just not enough to expose myself to the red-faced mobs that seems to run Twitter these days.

Now I spend a lot less time on Twitter in general. Most of my tweets are syndicated from a blog aggregation service with actual community guidelines - Micro.blog. I still think the Twitter product itself is very well developed and I miss what it used to be. When I’m on there now, though, I’m dodging true believers on my right and on my left. Let’s face it, Twitter wasn’t created to be a political platform. There is little room for explanation or context. I’m also avoiding tweet storms that would have been blog posts 10 years ago. Plodding through those threads feels a bit like reading a novel written on sticky notes. They are antithetical to the original design and intent of the service.

Twitter has changed a lot over the last few years and it only seems to be slouching towards further decline. These days, there are usually many more edifying ways to spend time online.

There has never been a better time to quit Facebook, after the company recently revealed a policy that formalized the ability of politicians to lie in ads on the platform. Techcrunch writer Josh Costine called the move a disgorgement of responsibility. The web publication has another piece by Costine, calling on Facebook, and other tech companies, to ban political ads altogether. The ban would hold until they can come up with a coherent policy that doesn’t erode democratic freedoms by inundating the populace with misinformation.

No one wants historically untrustworthy social networks becoming the honesty police, deciding what’s factual enough to fly. But the alternative of allowing deception to run rampant is unacceptable. Until voter-elected officials can implement reasonable policies to preserve truth in campaign ads, the tech giants should go a step further and refuse to run them.

The formalization of the policy accepting misinformation in ads came after the campaign of Joe Biden called on Facebook to remove ads promoting false claims about him that were made by the Trump campaign. Facebook refused to take the ads down, abdicating any responsibility for their veracity.

In response, the campaign of Elizabeth Warren posted an ad blatantly lying about Mark Zuckerberg endorsing Donald Trump.

Costine writes, in the TechCrunch piece, that “It’s easy to imagine campaign ads escalating into an arms race of dishonesty.”

I’ve always stayed away from Facebook, watching from the sidelines as the company has made a series of bad decisions, every one seemingly worse than the previous. However, I did go back to Instagram a couple of years ago after quitting when they were originally purchased by Facebook. Now, I am now rethinking my relationship with that platform, especially after my recent push to consolidate my web presence at my own site. I am under no illusions that as many people would go to my personal site to see my photos as see them on Instagram, but more limited exposure seems a reasonable price to pay for principles. After all, I’m not selling anything.

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This past week, Alto’s Odyssey, the sequel to the much lauded iOS game Alto’s Adventure, was released to positive reviews. Alto’s Adventure offers a take on the “endless runner” game that gives a snowboarder a vast natural playground for collecting coins and doing simple tricks. Odyssey isn’t a brand new experience, but rather builds upon its predecessor in innovative ways.

What interests me about the Alto’s franchise is how people use the games in a therapeutic way. Several folks have written about Alto’s Adventure as a meditative experience and a treatment for anxiety.

Jason Kottke likens the experience of playing Alto’s Adventure with mediation.

I’ve played Alto’s Adventure a lot over the past year and a half. Like very a lot. At first, I played because the game was fun and I wanted to beat it. But eventually, I started playing the game when I was stressed or anxious. It became a form of meditation for me; playing cleared my mind and refocused my attention on the present. Even the seemingly stressful elements in the game became calming. The Elders, who spring up to give chase every few minutes, I don’t even notice anymore…which has become a metaphorical reminder for me to focus on my actions and what I can control and not worry about outside influences I can’t control.

The core of a meditative practice is directed focus on something. The most common object of focus is the breath. In mindful breathing, the mind is attuned to breathing, and when distractions inevitably arise, the mind is being trained to gently come back to the breath. In the Christian tradition of Centering Prayer, the practitioner learns to respond to distraction by mindfully bringing focus back to a sacred word. It is in these rituals that we can find a growing ability to let go of things that are not helpful and focus on the beauty and simplicity of the life that God has given to us.

For some, playing a game like Alto’s Adventure can be a calming substitute when meditation is difficult. Sameer Vasta writes about turning to the endless hills of Alto’s Adventure when he’s too keyed up to meditate.

I’ve been fairly open about my struggles with anxiety and depression, but I haven’t shared that one of my favorite coping mechanisms for my anxiety (at least, when it isn’t very bad, but still needs intervention) is to play zen mode on Alto’s Adventure. The repetitive motion, the serene landscapes, and the soothing music is often just what I need to center myself and recapture my composure.

The stigma of adults playing videogames seems to have been relegated to the past. Still, when gaming, I find myself occasionally wondering whether completing arbitrary tasks to satisfy a computer program is the best use of my time. When you start to look at gaming as being a possible avenue to better emotional health, though, the calculus starts to change a bit. Everyone needs a counterweight to the heavy demands of life in our modern world. Framed that way, $4.99 and some time reserved for fun seems like a pretty good deal.